Steven R Smith

Biographic Data

ID3926737
NAMESteven R Smith
GIVEN NAMESSteven R
FAMILY NAMESmith
SIGNATURESMITH S R
AFFILIATIONSUniversity of Wales
ORCID0000-0002-5098-8147
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS35
TOTAL CITATIONS36
AUTHOR COUNT35
EDITOR COUNT0
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR1973
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2026
H-INDEX4

  • "Several things have to come together": The liminality of solar energy development in San Luis Valley, Colorado

    Open AccessEleanor Andrews, Riley Miller et al.ARTICLEJournal of Political Ecology2026

    This is an accepted article with a DOI pre-assigned that is not yet published.As the aquifers beneath the San Luis Valley hit new lows, farmers and ranchers in this agricultural hub of southern Colorado are being encouraged to fallow their fields. With water scarcity as a push factor and renewable energy mandates as a pull factor, the Valley seems poised for a major transition toward solar energy production—but it is not yet clear whether or how …

  • Advancing science, policy and action in tipping points research

    Open AccessSteven R Smith, Manjana Milkoreit et al.ARTICLENature Climate Change2025

  • How to leverage positive tipping points for climate action

    Open AccessFemke J M M Nijsse, Timothy M Lenton et al.ARTICLEBulletin of the Atomic Scientists2025

    Negative tipping points for the Earth’s climate system are approaching fast, adding further urgency to climate action. But well-designed climate action may be able to trigger its counterpart: beneficial, or “positive,” tipping points. In both cases, self-reinforcing feedbacks can lead to rapid and potentially irreversible change, accelerating transitions in energy, industry, and agriculture. These positive tipping points can arise through learnin…

  • A method to identify positive tipping points to accelerate low-carbon transitions and actions to trigger them

    Open AccessTimothy M Lenton, Tom Powell et al.ARTICLESustainability Science2025References: 19

    Meeting the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to "well below 2 °C" requires a radical acceleration of action, as the global economy is decarbonising at least five times too slowly. Tipping points, where low-carbon transitions become self-propelling, could be key to achieving the necessary acceleration. We deem these normatively 'positive', because they can limit considerable, inequitable harms from global warming and help achieve sustainabi…

  • Development and preliminary validation of the South Wales Social Well-being Scale (SWSWBS)

    Open AccessJuping Yu, Siva Ganesh et al.ARTICLEBMC Public Health2024

    Preliminary validation of the SWSWBS shows the scale has satisfactory psychometric properties with good validity, reliability, and reasonable variability. This study needs to be replicated with larger and representative populations to explore how the scale can be used alongside the Warwick Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale to capture a holistic/multi-dimensional understanding of well-being

  • The Ontology of Well-Being in Social Policy and Welfare Practice

    Open AccessSteven R SmithBOOKThe Ontology of Well-Being in…2023

  • Reply to DS Ludwig et al

    Open AccessKevin D Hall, Juen Guo et al.ARTICLE2019References: 7

  • Revising Wolff’s support for retribution in theories of punishment: Desistance, rehabilitation, and accommodating individual and social accounts of responsibility

    John Deering, Steven R SmithARTICLEEthics and Social Welfare2016Cited by: 1References: 3

    Jonathan Wolff supports retribution as a justification for punishment in his book Ethics and Public Policy: A Philosophical Enquiry, arguing that the victim’s status and self-respect has been undermined by a crime committed. Punishment responds to these ‘social violations’, with the criminal justice system acting as a ‘communicative mechanism’ to the offender and victim, restoring the status of the victim by punishing the offender. Consistent wit…

  • Clinical Assessment of Children and Adolescents: A Practitioner's Handbook

    Leonard Handler, Radhika Krishnamurthy et al.BOOKClinical Assessment of Children…2015

  • Understanding Well-Being in Policy and Practice

    Steven R Smith, Gillian BrockARTICLEEthics and Social Welfare2014Cited by: 1

    The enhancement and measurement of well-being, as well as its meaning and value, have been scrutinised considerably in recent years, and from various quarters. In academia, disciplines such as phil

  • Melancholy and happiness

    Steven R Smith, Steven W SchmidtARTICLESouth African Journal of Philosophy2014References: 22

    This paper explores an under-theorised phenomenon – the experience of melancholy as an enhancer of happiness. Drawing from philosophy and literature, I define melancholy as an experience that combines the pleasure of feeling sad with sober self-reflection. Despite expectations to the contrary, two potentially positive outcomes of melancholy are identified – insightful pensiveness, and emotional connectedness with loss and pain. These outcomes can…

  • Knowing What is Good For You: A Theory of Prudential Value and Well-Being

    Steven R SmithARTICLEEthics and Social Welfare2013

  • Citizenship and disability: Incommensurable lives and well-being

    Steven R Smith, Steven W SchmidtARTICLECritical Review of International…2013Cited by: 2References: 10

    This paper explores a new political consensus promoting ‘active’ as opposed to ‘passive’ conceptions of citizenship, emerging from the late 1970s onwards, and marking the post-settlement/post-Marshellesque era of the welfare state. Reflecting this consensus, the disability rights movement critiques ‘passive’ conceptions, which are, it is claimed, supported by the medical model of disability and so-called objective accounts of ‘special needs’ and …

  • Liberal Ethics and Well-being Promotion in the Disability Rights Movement, Disability Policy, and Welfare Practice

    Steven R SmithARTICLEEthics and Social Welfare2012Cited by: 1References: 11

    The disability rights movement (DRM) has often been closely associated with the liberal values of individual choice and independence, or the ‘ethics of agency’, where enhancing the capacity to make autonomous decisions in various policy and practice-based contexts is said to facilitate disabled people's well-being. Nevertheless, other liberal values are derived from what will be termed here the ‘ethics of self-acceptance’. The latter is more disg…

  • Equality and diversity

    Open AccessSteven Smith, Steven R SmithBOOKEquality and Diversity2011

    This book explores the values of equality and diversity as promoted across liberal societies, drawing on various traditions of political and social philosophy, including liberal egalitarianism, existentialism and elements of post-modernism and post-structuralism. These philosophies are applied to policy and practice debates, especially concerning disability issues, but also relating to gender and multiculturalism.

  • Equality and diversityValue incommensurability and the politics of recognition: Value Incommensurability and the Politics of Recognition

    Steve Smith, Steven R SmithBOOKEquality and diversity2011

    This important book explores the values of equality and diversity as promoted across liberal societies, drawing on various traditions of political and social philosophy, and applying them to policy and practice debates.

  • Agency and surprise: Learning at the limits of empathic‐imagination and liberal egalitarian political philosophy

    Steven R Smith, Steven W SchmidtARTICLECritical Review of International…2008References: 3

    Liberal egalitarians have been wary of being orientated by the empathetic understanding of others lest it offends the separateness of persons. This worry can be overcome by embracing second‐order as well as first‐order empathetic‐imagination, while doing so strengthens liberal‐egalitarian claims to treat all with equal concern and respect. ‘First‐order’ empathic‐imagination, which accesses objective knowledge about a person’s experience, is a nec…

  • Equality, identity and the Disability Rights Movement: From policy to practice and from Kant to Nietzsche in more than one uneasy move

    Open AccessSteven R Smith, Steven W SchmidtARTICLECritical Social Policy2005Cited by: 2References: 16

    Consistent with Social Work Codes of Ethics and mainstream social policy objectives, the Disability Rights Movement (DRM) promotes the universal values of equal rights and individual autonomy, drawing heavily from Kantian philosophy. However, an anti-universalized Nietzschean perspective is also promoted via the ‘social model’ of disability, challenging the political orthodoxy of rights-based social movements, and the aspirations of social worker…

  • Left-libertarianism and the Search for Consistency and Plausibility

    Open AccessSteven R Smith, Steven W SchmidtARTICLERes Publica. Revista de Historia…2004

  • Fraternal learning and interdependency: Celebrating Differences Within Reciprocal Commitments

    Steven R Smith, Steven W SchmidtARTICLEPolicy & Politics2002Cited by: 4

    English The value of reciprocity is often promoted through contemporary policy making. In contrast, political philosophers, through developing critiques of the Rawlsian conception of justice as reciprocity, have often argued against such a principle forming a basis for legitimating policies. This article also offers a critique of contemporary policy making but using a recast form of the Rawlsian justification of reciprocity. The main argument is …

  • Distorted Ideals: The “Problem of Dependency” and the Mythology of Independent Living

    Steven R SmithARTICLESocial Theory and Practice2001

    The ideal of independent living for disabled people, although it has po litical cachet for a society committed to values of economic inde pendence and self-reliance, represents an over-simplified distortion of social experiences of disabled and non-disabled people alike and of complex moral questions arising out of these experiences. However, to understand ideal of independent living it is important first to ex amine what is socially constructed …

  • The Social Construction of Talent: A Defence of Justice as Reciprocity

    Open AccessSteven R Smith, Steven W SchmidtARTICLEJournal of Political Philosophy2001Cited by: 9

    Debates concerning principles of justice need to be attentive to various types of social process. One concerns the distribution of resources between groups defined as talented and untalented. Another concerns the social mechanisms by which people come to be categorised as talented and untalented. Political philosophers have paid considerable attention to the former issues, much less to the latter. That, I shall argue, represents a significant ove…

  • Fat and carbohydrate balances during adaptation to a high-fat diet

    Open AccessSteven R Smith, Patrick Schrauwen et al.ARTICLE2000References: 30

  • Arguing against cuts in lone parent benefits: Reclaiming the desert ground in the UK

    Open AccessSteven R Smith, Steven W SchmidtARTICLECritical Social Policy1999Cited by: 2References: 5

    Politicians from the centre-left tradition have been highly critical of government policy that has reduced lone parent social security benefits. However, the arguments here are that these critics have undermined distributive justice arguments against the cuts because they have conceded too much to a government which (a) stresses the value of paid over unpaid work and (b) socially constructs lone parents as being ‘welfare dependent’ and ‘non-parti…

  • Equality and Diversity: Value Incommensurability and the Politics of Recognition

    Steven Smith, Steven R SmithBOOKEquality and Diversity

    This important book explores the values of equality and diversity as promoted across liberal societies, drawing on various traditions of political and social philosophy, and applying them to policy and practice debates.